I've not played with any of them, but from what I have seen / read I would probably go for an echo or echo dot as it seems Alexa is more rounded and lets you install and develop skills to teach it extra stuff.

For example Tesco have made one so you can control your shop rather than just make a shopping list you have to do something with later.

Green Gecko wrote:Anyone use a Google Home? The Home Mini has a chunk off at the moment and while I try to keep mobile screen time to a minimum due to how my brain works, I find voice commands and reminders much more stimulating than pop-ups, checking lists etc. I think it might help as assistive technology to remember to do things, without having to tap tap tap on a device, keep that device charged, and easily get sucked into useless information (social media etc), which has the opposite effect of what I need.

I've also been really impressed how effective Google's voice analysis is at recognising my drawl - perhaps not 100% accurate for things like texts, but certainly making basic requests and queries like, remind to do x, which doesn't need to be super accurate or have any nuance.

I've had an Echo and Google Home.. started with the Echo and an Echo Dot and they are very good but it depends how much you use Amazon.. it's nice how things like Prime Music, Audible etc.. are built in to it.

I later swapped the Echo for a Google Home as I use Google Music and wanted one that worked with that.. overall I much prefer the Google Home. It seems slightly better at answering general questions and with things like traffic updates etc.. I got 2 Google Home Mini's yesterday to add to it so now have the google Home in the lounge with a mini in the kitchen and the second in our bedroom.

I hadn't realized you can group them together which is nice so now I can say "play songs by Aerosmith downstairs" and it'll play the same stuff through the lounge Google Home and the kitchen mini.. or I can say "play Aerosmith" and it'll just play on whichever device i'm talking to. Also have a group for all 3 which plays out of all of them.

They've also released a broadcast feature so you can send a voice message from your phone to play on all your Google Home devices so for example, if dinners ready I can broadcast from the kitchen one to the others to let people know.. or if i'm running late from work I could broadcast from my phone to let the missus know if she's home. Not sure how useful it'll be in reality but quite cool to play around with.

The sound quality on the Home Mini beats the echo dot too for music/radio playback..

A big part is how much you're inevested in Google or Amazon services though.. if you use amazon a lot and stuff like Audible you might prefer it.. but if you already have Google Music or a Chromecast etc.. you might prefer the Googe Home. They're both good though, largely depends what you use and what you want to use them for.

Google does allow multiple users too if that makes any difference. So if you have someone else in the house it'll tell who's asking the question based on your voice and tailor the answer so if I ask "how long will it take me to get to work" it'll know my work location and tell me how the traffic is, if my missus asks, it knows where she works etc.. same with calendar queries and the like.

Errkal wrote:The amazon one can do non Amazon services if you install Skills like Spotify and whatnot, and I think there is a multiple user skill now too.

They both definitely support Spotify.. I *think* the Echo supported Deezer too from what I remember.

One thing I like with the Google Home though is you can also cast to it from anything so you can play music or audio from anything your phone can play. You can do this on the Echo's too via Bluetooth but casting does make it a bit easier. The main thing I miss from the Dot is the alarm clock sounds, from what I can see the Google Home Mini only has one predefined alarm sound at the moment.. I used to quite like waking up to Jeremy Clarkson and friends screaming at me to get up on the Dot

Errkal wrote:The amazon one can do non Amazon services if you install Skills like Spotify and whatnot, and I think there is a multiple user skill now too.

They both definitely support Spotify.. I *think* the Echo supported Deezer too from what I remember.

One thing I like with the Google Home though is you can also cast to it from anything so you can play music or audio from anything your phone can play. You can do this on the Echo's too via Bluetooth but casting does make it a bit easier. The main thing I miss from the Dot is the alarm clock sounds, from what I can see the Google Home Mini only has one predefined alarm sound at the moment.. I used to quite like waking up to Jeremy Clarkson and friends screaming at me to get up on the Dot

I guess they all have there benefits and stuff.

I quite like the idea of the Echo as it seems more "open" in terms of being able to get skills and integrate it with other systems and what not as well as do your own if you want, but I'm a tinkerer so that appeals.

I know very little about mobile phones now, so I’ve come to GR for guidance.

Just the facts:> My sister’s 3G smart mobile (android) was water-damaged and she wanted to get a new phone> I suggested she could just take her existing sim (which is fine) and pop it into a new cheapish smart phone> In our local phone shop, the assistant told her that she couldn’t use her old sim because it was “only 3G” and “new handsets don’t use that”

Am I right in thinking that the assistant was talking a load of pony? Surely 3G is still reasonably popular and useable?

jawafour wrote:I know very little about mobile phones now, so I’ve come to GR for guidance.

Just the facts:> My sister’s 3G smart mobile (android) was water-damaged and she wanted to get a new phone> I suggested she could just take her existing sim (which is fine) and pop it into a new cheapish smart phone> In our local phone shop, the assistant told her that she couldn’t use her old sim because it was “only 3G” and “new handsets don’t use that”

Am I right in thinking that the assistant was talking a load of pony? Surely 3G is still reasonably popular and useable?

As far as I know its not that the sim is only 3G, its that the sim is physically too big to fit in newer phones. Most, if not all, new handsets will use a micro or nano sim, so if she has the old big sim card then that wont fit in new phones. She should be able to just get a new smaller sim and keep her number though. Ive done that a couple of times with Vodafone, first from regular to micro and then from micro to nano, both times the guy behind the counter just handed me the new sim and said wait a couple of hours for it to activate, there was no hassle with it.

Rax wrote:As far as I know its not that the sim is only 3G, its that the sim is physically too big to fit in newer phones. Most, if not all, new handsets will use a micro or nano sim...

Ah, okay, thanks man. I’m behind the times with mobiles now - I still use an old 2G handset . The assistant sounded like a right jumped-up twonk, though, so we’ll look elsewhere for a phone and card. Thanks, Rax!

Green Gecko wrote:Anyone use a Google Home? The Home Mini has a chunk off at the moment and while I try to keep mobile screen time to a minimum due to how my brain works, I find voice commands and reminders much more stimulating than pop-ups, checking lists etc. I think it might help as assistive technology to remember to do things, without having to tap tap tap on a device, keep that device charged, and easily get sucked into useless information (social media etc), which has the opposite effect of what I need.

I've also been really impressed how effective Google's voice analysis is at recognising my drawl - perhaps not 100% accurate for things like texts, but certainly making basic requests and queries like, remind to do x, which doesn't need to be super accurate or have any nuance.

I've had an Echo and Google Home.. started with the Echo and an Echo Dot and they are very good but it depends how much you use Amazon.. it's nice how things like Prime Music, Audible etc.. are built in to it.

I later swapped the Echo for a Google Home as I use Google Music and wanted one that worked with that.. overall I much prefer the Google Home. It seems slightly better at answering general questions and with things like traffic updates etc.. I got 2 Google Home Mini's yesterday to add to it so now have the google Home in the lounge with a mini in the kitchen and the second in our bedroom.

I hadn't realized you can group them together which is nice so now I can say "play songs by Aerosmith downstairs" and it'll play the same stuff through the lounge Google Home and the kitchen mini.. or I can say "play Aerosmith" and it'll just play on whichever device i'm talking to. Also have a group for all 3 which plays out of all of them.

They've also released a broadcast feature so you can send a voice message from your phone to play on all your Google Home devices so for example, if dinners ready I can broadcast from the kitchen one to the others to let people know.. or if i'm running late from work I could broadcast from my phone to let the missus know if she's home. Not sure how useful it'll be in reality but quite cool to play around with.

The sound quality on the Home Mini beats the echo dot too for music/radio playback..

A big part is how much you're inevested in Google or Amazon services though.. if you use amazon a lot and stuff like Audible you might prefer it.. but if you already have Google Music or a Chromecast etc.. you might prefer the Googe Home. They're both good though, largely depends what you use and what you want to use them for.

Google does allow multiple users too if that makes any difference. So if you have someone else in the house it'll tell who's asking the question based on your voice and tailor the answer so if I ask "how long will it take me to get to work" it'll know my work location and tell me how the traffic is, if my missus asks, it knows where she works etc.. same with calendar queries and the like.

Cool, thanks for that. You don't point out any glaring issues and I don't use Amazon services at all (except purchases of course), and I don't really like them.. don't really like the design either. It all seems kind of cluttered and the idea of installing skills etc. is just something I can't be arsed with. I use Google for pretty much everything like calendar (they recently added reminders and appointment creation which was sorely missing) and Gmail/Inbox - bizarre that it's not compatible with Gsuite/GApps though, hopefully that gets added later, but I haven't migrated my business yet (I really should!). As just a thing to bark things at to remind me etc, as a verbal reasoner/kinaesthetic sort of person, I get kind of worked up and frustrated using computers for too long, a real vice as I find them very useful. So when voice activation and AI actually work properly, that's the future for me. Probably worth a punt at £35, so I'll give it a think and see if I can justify it as a cheapo job assistant. And something to talk to on slow days at the office. I've even thought of telling it to "remind me" of motivational messages Thanks for your impressions!

I occasionally pick up something called Edge which I believe is the 2G equivalent of data and about half as fast as dial-up.

I'm actually with Jawa though, I use a K800i for anti-distraction reasons and rarely turn on my HTC One (which is still a cracking phone with the best audio, quad core / 1GB and all). The battery lasts like 4 days and a week on standby. I can still take photos and transfer that gooseberry fool on a high speed 4GB M2 card which has room for virtually infinite stuff or bluetooth.

Rax wrote:As far as I know its not that the sim is only 3G, its that the sim is physically too big to fit in newer phones. Most, if not all, new handsets will use a micro or nano sim...

Ah, okay, thanks man. I’m behind the times with mobiles now - I still use an old 2G handset . The assistant sounded like a right jumped-up twonk, though, so we’ll look elsewhere for a phone and card. Thanks, Rax!

If she is on a subscription she can just call up her provider and get them to send a new SIM. Normally these will come in "pop out" form so 1 sim fits 3 different sizes. If she is pay as you go and wants to eek out the remaining pennies of credit left on her SIM, she could get a SIM cutter.

Many thanks to autocorrect for keep capitalising SIM so I look RETARDED.

abcd wrote:I might try a clean install to see if it fixes the battery drain.

Has it gone a complete run since charge? My battery stats (OP5) are a bit gooseberry fool. From a 100% charge it will drop by about 6% over an hour with no use but then go on for ages with the remaining. Wondering whether your apparent usage will level out.